Reader comments

Yes they should. As long as they undertake not to act in their job upon any doctrine of their church at odds with their prescribed public role. I would advocate a test act to this effect requiring the signature of all aspiring public servants.

Matt it is obvious you are a troll. I do not see why Pink News lets you continue. I really don’t mind opposition, but you are poisoning every argument. This has got nothing to do with freedom of speech. You are behaving, without exception, like a troll.

That’s rather silly. Former PM Zapatero of Spain is a catholic and he managed to get equal marriage passed, as did the leaders of other Catholic leaders of Belgium, Portugal, Argentina, Mexico City, as well as the Catholic governors of three American states, New York, Maryland and Washington. All of them managed to separate religious laws from secular laws to do the right thing.

Sorry, but only ‘the Catholic governors of three American states’ is ‘correct’. Former PM Chose Louiz Rodriquez Zapatero, Guy Verhofstadt, Jose Sokrates, Argentinian president de Kirchner and mayor of Mexico City Manuel Pena are not ‘devote’ Catholics, I think, but rather atheists or agnostics, or not?

It’s not completely out of the question. MEPs rejected Rocco Buttiglione in 2004 under similar circumstances. Moreover, MEPs don’t usually get to vote on individual commissioners and can only reject all 27 commissioners as a group, but since Mr Borg’s predecessor quit he is the only new face on the commission, making it much easier to secure a no-vote of the whole parliament than it was in Mr Buttiglione’s case.

But all the indicators are that Mr Borg will be confirmed by MEPs. Mr Borg met with equality-minded MEPs and persuaded them he had “evolved” on gay issues. He also avoided saying anything impressively stupid this afternoon during his grilling (bit.ly/X2kgCv).

MEPs don’t want to seem anti-Catholic or anti-religion, and they will give him the nod, arguing that he has pledged to uphold anti-discrimination principles.

Provided that Roman Catholics eschew the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church, then they might be acceptable in public office. John Kennedy when he became president of the USA felt it necessary to affirm that he would not be instructed by the Vatican.

PinkNews covers religion, politics, entertainment, finance, and community news for the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community in the UK and worldwide. Founded to produce broadsheet quality journalism for the LGBT community, we cover politics to theology in an intelligent manner.